Mama Needs a New Pair of Shoes

The Gal admits it–she needs a vacation.

Happily, I take a break around this time every year to meet a girlfriend I’ve known forever. We call each other best sister-friends, because we go back so far (pre getting our driver’s licenses) and have shared some spectacular experiences.

Working together in restaurants has definitely cemented our bond.

One summer, when we were barely 15, we worked in our hometown’s (also a popular tourist-town) only coffee shop, serving up countless orders of eggs and scrapple and scooping gallons of ice cream to locals and tourists.

For several summers, we worked in the same town’s only upscale restaurant. She was the cocktail waitress and I was the bartender (the legal age to pour and serve was lower then). We pooled tips, made a fortune in our 18- and 19-year-old minds, and I have never forgotten how to make an awesome frozen Grasshopper.

As adults, we’ve lived far apart–she in Montana, and me on the East Coast. Somehow, though, we’ve remained as close as ever, only lamenting that we can’t talk over the backyard fence in person instead of over phone lines, and now via IM.

But we never miss a yearly vacation together.

When the kids were little, these were simple family vacations. Now that our kids are older and our husbands run their own businesses, time feels more precious. Over the past eight years or so, this has evolved into an annual best-sister-friend vacation on our own.

In Vegas.

To say we have a blast doesn’t come close.

During this trip, I plan to interview maitre’ds along the Strip to see how their experiences compare to mine. Stay tuned for an interesting survey.

And let me know your favorite numbers to bet at the roulette table (I usually win there).

I leave Sunday, July 9, and get back on Sunday, July 16.

Be nice to hosts and tip the servers well while I am away.

Snake eyes, baby!

–The Gal


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

14 responses to “Mama Needs a New Pair of Shoes”

  1. lla Avatar

    Sounds like a lovely trip you have planned – we should all be so lucky to have such a good friend from our childhood!

    Travel safe and have fun.

    (And I am partial to both the color black, and the number 8.)

  2. lla Avatar

    weird – when I tried to make an “8” and then close my paren – it made a dorky little smiley….

  3. Restaurant Gal Avatar

    IIa–That just means I HAVE to play the number 8 and bet on black. I’ll let you know how much I win…

    –The Gal

  4. Mr. Restaurant Gal Avatar
    Mr. Restaurant Gal

    Ila, that’s because WordPress interprets certain character sequences as shorthands for smileys and does a replacement on its own. In your case the “8” followed by the “)” was intepreted as 8). See? Ain’t computers great? 🙂

  5. Natalie Avatar

    Have a blast!

  6. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    8 Is my lucky number too, as is 21…. Good Luck and Have Fun!!!

  7. Ashlea Avatar
    Ashlea

    Lucky number 13! ^-^ It’s lucky because my 13th birthday was on a Friday the 13th!

  8. Trish Avatar
    Trish

    hey there, just got back from my 3rd trip to vegas this year alone, best of luck to you! i’m not much of a roulette girl (house advantage is so bad and i don’t ever have more than $20 i’m willing to blow in a single trip) but darn those penny slots are tempting. I am very interested in hearing what the folks at the big fancy strip restaurants have to say about their customers, i sure have seen some jerks at the less pricey places i’ve been. Bet the cocktail waitresses have some good stories too!

    anyways, best of luck! On the online roulette tables 36 always seems to come up for me 😉

  9. Karyn Avatar

    I just looked up what scrapple is. ummm, people eat that?

    can’t wait to read the survey – viva las vegas!

  10. Natalie Avatar

    I hope you have a blast. A vacation is well deserved!

  11. SaltyMissJill Avatar
    SaltyMissJill

    Scrapple? Are you a Philly gal, too?

  12. Mukta Avatar

    What is scrapple? You get that in Vegas? Anyway, have fun and win, win, win!

  13. Phil Avatar

    In the words of Wesley Snipes, “always bet on black”.

  14. Cygnata Avatar
    Cygnata

    Scrapple is a Pennsylvania Dutch dish, consisting of potatoes, a couple other breakfast veggies, iirc… and every bit of meat they won’t even put in the sausage.

    Mmm, beef brains…